Credit: The Associated Press

FILE - In this July 3, 1963 file photo, U.S. President John F. Kennedy stands at the lectern behind a production slate board during a television taping at the White House. In life and especially in death, Kennedy changed television forever. (AP Photo)

Credit: The Associated Press

FILE - In this Oct. 21, 1960 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John F. Kennedy, center left, and Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Nixon, stand in a television studio during their presidential debate in New York. Polls found those who listened on radio awarded Nixon the debate victory. (AP Photo)

Credit: The Associated Press

FILE - In this April 3, 1960 file photo, Sen. John F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential nominee, sits next to a playback of his televised appearance in Milwaukee, Wis. for the Wisconsin presidential primary two days later. (AP Photo)

Credit: The Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 15, 1962 file photo, U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, center, checks the table setting of the White House gold service in the state dining room as she conducts a tour of the newly-restored White House for television cameras in Washington to be aired the month afterwards. More than 80 million Americans tuned in. (AP Photo)

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NEW YORK — It's a measure of how long ago President John F. Kennedy died that, at the time, television was described as a young medium. With the shooting in Dallas, TV grew up.

Coverage that November weekend 50 years ago signaled, at last, that television could fulfill its grand promise. It could be "more than wires and lights in a box," in the words of newsman Edward R. Murrow, and not just the "vast wasteland" that Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow had branded it just two years before.